


found the place to rest my head (never let me go)

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: Forgotten Moments [8]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Post 2.09, angst central with a little bit of hope, missing canon moments, post 2.08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-01 17:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13299303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: He can't have it both ways: he can’t push her away for her own good while still acting as her unneeded protector. It isn’t fair and she will not have it. Not now, especially not from him. Betty levels him with a piercing look and sees the surprise flash across his eyes. It brings her another rush of adrenaline, that she can still surprise the people who supposedly know her best, who think they know what’s best for her.Or: Betty & Jughead keep running into each other when they're supposed to be staying away. (Some missing canon moments among 2.08 & 2.09, as though we didn't already have enough angst going around.)Part One takes place post 2.08, Part two post 2.09





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> I was filling some askbox dialogue prompts over on tumblr and then got royally carried away. No one is surprised. 
> 
> Huge shoutout to jugandbettsdetectiveagency for being my all-around inspiration/fic coach because we fuel each other's angst needs like no one else. 
> 
> Title is from Never Let Me Go by Florence + the Machine

They're in the grocery store when Betty finally loses her temper with Alice. The threshold of how long she can withstand light passive aggressions or outright snide remarks has been dropping exponentially since the world of Riverdale started to implode; the rush she got from standing up to Alice when she was threatening Archie and Ms. Grundy, of realizing that she is her  _ own person  _ and her mother  _ does not  _ control her, is one that she wants to feel as often as possible. Betty does her best to keep the peace in the interest of the kinder side of Alice that’s come out into the open, but there are some things she can no longer stand. Alice’s blatant distaste for Jughead and the Southside, especially in light of how she dressed to FP’s failed retirement party earlier that week, is one of those things Betty loses her patience over. Her mother held her while she cried when she came home that night—her heart in pieces yet again—stroking her hair and whispering that it would be okay, that he would come to his senses and come back. But the next day it was business as usual and the derogatory comments toward Jughead only increased. 

 

It’s only several days after the disastrous party—the lingerie set still mocking her from the back of the closet and Jughead’s harsh  _ go home  _ echoing in her ears constantly—when Betty’s patience wears thin in the middle of the cereal aisle at Riverdale Market. There is only one big grocery store in Riverdale, right on the town’s metaphorical line in the sand, down the road from Pop’s, so it is not altogether uncommon for the haughty Northsiders to run into Southside Serpents while shopping for vegetables. Usually there are merely dirty glances or loud huffs while giving the leather-clad crowd a wide berth. 

 

But Alice Cooper is nothing if not beyond the ‘usual’.

 

Betty is helping her tick items off the week’s grocery list when they walk past a small cluster of teenage Serpents. She recognizes them as some of Jughead’s new circle and shrinks away, as though she could blend into the Corn Flakes and Cocoa Puffs. They all know who each other are and how they're connected, but Jughead still isn't talking to Betty—he's making it stick—and she really doesn't need the reminder that there are more forces at play keeping them apart than just his stubbornness. 

 

She makes uncomfortable eye contact with one of the boys she thinks is named Fangs and glances away quickly, flushing. He was definitely there the night of her Serpent dance and that's the last thing she wants to think of. 

 

Alice seems to have other plans. As the group of younger Serpents amble down the aisle, grabbing snacks and tossing them into a basket, her mother opens her mouth to remark loudly, “You're much better off without all that riff-raff in your life, Elizabeth. Jughead was already dragging you under and I just wish he'd come to his senses before you'd taken your clothes off in public.” 

 

The teens slow down and toss glares over their shoulders. Betty wishes looks could kill so she wouldn't be alive to deal with this humiliation. She is exhausted by the sheer energy it has taken to face her own friends after that night, let alone any of Jughead’s friends, or—god forbid—Jughead himself. Alice’s comments would surely merit a mention to him and Betty really does not want to think about him thinking about her. It just hurts too much. 

 

“Mom,” Betty pleads. “Please stop.” 

 

But Alice carries on just as loudly, beginning to list everything she found wrong about Jughead. When she goes in on his “hoodlum ways” and “taking after his father”, Betty snaps. 

 

“Enough, Mom! Whatever your deal with FP is, leave Jughead out of it. They're both good people and just because you think they're beneath you doesn't change that fact. I'm sick of you acting like I can't make my own decisions or be a judge of character. Your opinions don't change mine and they certainly don't change the fact that I love Jughead, so just stop it!” She's fuming by the time she finishes, her voice raised to a shout and only then does she notice that the group of Serpents at the end of the aisle has multiplied. Betty recognizes Toni’s long, pink hair and then a familiar crown beanie on jet black locks, and immediately wants to sink into the ground, her face burning. 

 

“Elizabeth,” Alice says tightly. “Lower your voice. People are staring.” 

 

Tempers flaring and humiliation burning across her skin, Betty turns on her heel and starts to walk away from her mother—the only way to go is through the group that includes Jughead and even though she wants to disappear into thin air, her Cooper resolve holds fast. 

 

“Elizabeth Cooper, do not walk away from me!” 

 

Betty is quickly closing the distance between her and the Serpents, gritting her teeth and telling herself not to meet Jug’s eyes, but she pauses to turn when her mother calls at her retreating figure. “Watch me,” she bites back. The tingle of adrenaline rushes down her spine at the open-mouthed shock she receives in response; it feels good, feels powerful. 

 

She wheels around and finds herself much closer to Jughead than she had been before. It's a moment before she notices that it's because he stepped forward out of the group, as though the instinct to back her up against Alice Cooper had taken over before he could stop himself. 

 

The thought ricochets through Betty painfully and suddenly her anger toward her mother redirects toward him. He can't have it both ways: he can’t push her away  _ for her own good  _ while still acting as her unneeded protector. It isn’t fair and she will not have it. Not now, especially not from him. Betty levels him with a piercing look and sees the surprise flash across his eyes. It brings her another rush of adrenaline, that she can still surprise the people who supposedly know her best, who think they know what’s best  _ for  _ her. “What do you want,” she snaps, stalking past Jughead before he can even open his mouth to respond. 

 

She can hear the chorus of “oh shits” and low whistles behind her as she rushes past the crowds of shopping carts and customers. The tears are coming hard and fast and she really doesn't want to be caught crying in public over her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—yet again. 

 

There's a bench across the parking lot from the store’s entryway and she slumps into it, hanging her head in her hands. Betty rips the ponytail out of her hair and stretches the hair tie in her fingers, needing anything to stop her from breaking the delicate skin of her palms and trying to pinpoint when she stopped being able to keep herself from falling apart. 

 

She shudders and breathes slowly, trying to even out her heart rate and stem the flow of heavy tears. With everything that has been going on in recent weeks—Fred getting shot, Polly leaving, the Black Hood calls,  _ anything  _ about Jughead—Betty is so sick of crying. She is particularly over how much she has cried about Jughead. If he is going to be the one to push her away this time, to  _ make it stick,  _ and break things off for some arbitrary reason (because if she’s being honest with herself, anything less than  _ literally being threatened by a psychotic serial killer  _ is arbitrary), then she wants to be the strong one. She does not want to be the broken, crying blonde in grocery aisles because her ex heard her telling her mom she still loves him. 

 

This is high school love, she reminds herself, it was never supposed to be this intense or this hard. She can… she  _ can _ do this. Even if she doesn’t want to. 

 

“Betty?” 

 

The voice isn’t the one she’s expecting—she was anticipating Alice to follow her in a fit of embarrassed fury—but it’s the one she prefers over anything else. Betty flinches at how easily her resolve from just moments before crumbles; there is a good chance she will never, ever hold her ground if it involves staying away from Jughead. She’s fairly certain it just isn’t something she is wired to do. She gravitates toward him so easily, so simply, as if their separate orbits had always been meant to merge into one, as if they had always been meant for each other. 

 

Jughead is standing in front of her, holding himself at a cautious distance—close enough for her to read the trepidation on his face and him to see the tears welled in her eyes, but not so close that her breath will catch the way it did in the store and she’ll have to fight the urge to reach out and touch him. She doesn’t say anything, holding his gaze and daring him to speak first. He rubs at the back of his neck nervously. 

 

“I, uh, I wanted to see if you were alright,” he says, almost softly. The care in his voice makes her heart ache and she wants to scream. None of this is fair and she wants him to feel it the way she does. 

 

“I’m not,” Betty eventually chokes out. “I’m not okay and it’s your fault but you’ve made it abundantly clear that it’s not supposed to be your problem anymore.” She stands, tightening her coat against the cold, giving her hands something to do. Her fists tighten anyway when she lets them fall and Jughead’s eyes flick to them immediately. The pain flashes over his face and, again, before he can stop himself he is reaching out for her hands to uncurl them, wishing desperately to do anything to take away her pain. 

 

Betty flinches away from him. For an imperceptible moment, Jughead’s expression betrays that it feels as though his heart just cracked in two. By the time Betty meets his eye again, he’s schooled the pain into a neutral expression, but she knows her action hurt—there’s not a chance it didn’t, not when their bodies’ natural instinct in to lean into each other instead of backing away. 

 

“Okay,” he says, taking a couple steps back. They both stand there, not moving, unsure of what is supposed to happen now. They’re broken up, each of them acutely aware of that fact. They are supposed to turn their backs and walk back to their respective sides of town, supposed to stay away from each other. Yet they are rooted to the ground in this spot, this unintended midway point where neither of them can admit—or is willing to admit—that this is it. It’s supposed to be it. 

 

“Yo, Jones!” The sharp yell from the pack of Serpents across the parking lot breaks the trance. Betty startles and Jughead whips his head around. “We’re leaving your ass behind if you don’t hurry up!” 

 

The idea of Betty being something to  _ hurry up  _ and leave behind hurts her more than she is willing to admit. While his back is turning, she slips away quietly, heading for the exit on the other side of the lot that leads back toward the Northside. Tears stream down her face once again and this time she can’t talk herself out of them. 

 

Back at the bench, Jughead turns back to offer a weak apology to Betty and is met with an empty space—he sees her halfway across the parking lot in her pink coat and can tell she is crying by the hunch in her back. The halo of her blonde hair falling over her shaking shoulders, out of its usual ponytail, is too much for him to bear. 

 

Reluctantly, he heads in the direction of his fellow Serpents, letting the darkness of the unlit Southside streets swallow him up. 


	2. part two

Leave it to Reggie Mantle to throw a party celebrating both the return from winter break  _ and  _ the fact that the Black Hood is dead—the fliers and facebook invite both featured the movie poster for Friday the 13th with the text reading ‘LET’S RAGE BECAUSE THE SERIAL KILLER IS DEAD’. And leave it to Veronica Lodge to drag an incredibly unwilling Betty to said party. 

 

“V, it doesn’t feel right. And partying is the last thing I feel like doing right now.” 

 

Veronica purses her lips at Betty and cocks her hip in annoyance. “I’ll give you that this is a terrible party theme. But you have been  _ so down  _ since all of this settled and I know it’s because you and your Patrick Verona wannabe are still on the outs. You need to let loose, and there is no place better for that than a Reggie Mantle party.” 

 

Much as she wants to take the time to explain to Veronica that,  _ yes  _ technically she and Jughead are still apart but something changed a little when they exchanged Christmas gifts, but  _ no  _ she has no idea what this means, Veronica decided time was of the essence. All her complaints fall on deaf ears and Betty can’t find a reason valid enough that will convince Veronica to let her off the hook; she reluctantly lets her best friend do her up in a sparkly pink dress that is far too short for her liking and drag her to a rager she does not want to be at. 

 

The music is loud, the bass reverberating around the house that is packed to the brim with drunk, writhing high schoolers, and a red solo cup is shoved into her the moment she walks through the door. It feels too familiar to the disastrous end of Jughead’s birthday party and it gives everything an ominous air, like she’s walked into a horror movie in which all the distracted— _ sinning,  _ she thinks before she can stop—teens wind up dead. If Betty didn’t want to be here before she even showed up, she positively wants to flee now. Unfortunately, Veronica flits off in search of Archie, leaving Betty to sniff suspiciously at the cup in her hand before abandoning it on a flat surface. 

 

Something deep inside her wants to find a drink and let loose like Veronica keeps suggesting, but Betty’s not sure she wants that to happen  _ here  _ and it certainly isn’t going to happen if she can’t see what is being poured into the cups. But she knows the darkness inside her she is struggling to keep at bay needs a release; she cannot help but wonder how much more she can be expected to take before it fully drowns her. 

 

Shoulders tense and sensors on high alert, Betty calms the itch in her fingers by tightening her ponytail instead of digging them into her palms. She bargained with Veronica until she could keep the ponytail, citing the short dress as adventurous enough. The weight on her chest that had settled in after the first Black Hood phone call has finally lightened—if only somewhat, because the burden and anxiety still sat heavy in her heart, just with a different source. Jughead’s words of ‘until it sticks’ continued to echo in her brain, swirling in combination of the image of Archie climbing into the coffin, the black lingerie set shoved in the back of her closet, the sickening thud of dirt on the coffin lid, the moment of blinding confusion when she had kissed the boy she knew she didn’t love, and the ring of Sheriff Keller’s gunshot to make a terrible maelstrom of nightmares. Only on occasion was it broken up by Jughead’s giddy smile when she handed him his Christmas present and the warmth she felt when reading the note he’d included with her own gift. 

 

Betty is so wrapped up in her own head that she almost thinks she dreamed Jughead into existence in front of her, the Jughead she fell in love with who looked at her intently and only wore sherpa-lined jackets instead of leather ones. She blinks, flexing her fingers out of fists, but he’s still standing there. Solid, and not at all in her imagination. Something flickers in her chest, something like hope, but she squashes it quickly before tugging nervously at the hem of the sequined dress. 

 

“Hey, Betts,” he offers softly, voice barely audible over the boom of the music and the happy, drunken shouts. The use of the nickname hits her square in the chest, stealing her breath. And then she remembers everything and it gets just a little bit harder to breathe. 

 

“What are you doing here, Jug?” The question itself isn’t venomous, but the way she asks it is and Jughead flinches, guilt washing over his face. 

 

His hand goes to the back of his neck, his telltale sign of discomfort, and he scratches below the collar of his jacket. His hand meets denim instead of leather and something about that makes him simultaneously relax and grit his teeth. 

 

“I’m only here to establish an alibi.” He goes for a joke, hoping to tease a smile from her but it doesn’t land. Considering his recent activities, it’s only fair that she doesn’t immediately assume he is kidding. “I, uh,” he clears his throat, doing his absolute best to not look at the place where the end of the tiny pink dress meets her thighs. “Archie dragged me, thought I could use some  _ good clean fun. _ ” The air quotes are obvious in his tone of voice and Betty cracks a tiny smile. 

 

“Funny, Veronica used the same excuse on me.” 

 

Jughead looks at her, desperately clinging to the hint of warmth in her gaze. “Want to get out of here?” The upturn of her mouth doesn’t turn into a full-blown, heart-stopping Betty Cooper smile like he hopes, but it doesn’t drop either. And that’s good enough for now. 

  
  


They wind up at Pop’s, because where else would they go in the middle of the night during the last weekend of winter break. Their dynamic still holds a degree of awkwardness, the tense situation not quite yet healed by the unspoken words of their Christmas gifts or the shared relief of the Black Hood’s supposed end. The night is cold and they walk side by side down the quiet streets, the silence only broken by the crunch of their footsteps in the snow. Betty has things she wants to say but can’t bring herself too— _ I still love you but I’m still so mad, I kissed Archie and I don’t know why because you’re all I want, I’m scared none of this is really over _ —so she settles for the companionable silence and tries not to think about how easy it would be to just take his hand in hers, lace her gloved fingers through his cold ones. 

 

Similarly, Jughead fights the urge to sling his arm over her shoulder like he always used to and bring her body close to his for warmth. She’s bundled up against the frigid air but still in a dress and he wants to make a joke about her choice of attire but he’s still far too distracted by how beautiful she looks or how he wants to kiss her senseless until those lean legs are wrapped around his waist. The hesitation toward him is blatant so he settles for walking close enough for their shoulders to brush, and then guiding her through the front door of Pop’s with a gentle hand on the small of her back. His entire being aches with the need to walk back everything between them until they were back to the level of comfort and happiness they both felt during their first declarations of love. 

 

So much time has passed since then, so much chaos and strife and heartbreak—on both sides—and Jughead would give anything to go back in time to when they would sit in these booths and Betty didn’t look at him with careful regard, as though he was a ticking bomb that could explode at any moment, ruining her. 

 

The cold flushed her face and she’s glad for it because her skin is aflame from the light touch on her back when they walked through the door. It was so easy to slip back into their old habits and she so badly wants to. Something holds her back. 

 

Pop brings by their milkshakes—an unspoken tradition they’re not willing to break, despite the temperature outside—and Betty sips at hers, eyeing Jughead carefully. 

 

She keeps her tone light when she speaks. “Haven’t seen that jacket it in a while.” 

 

The half-assed lie is out of his mouth before he can stop it, “It’s the warmest one I have.” He reads the disappointment in her eyes, clouding over the spark of hope he’d seen in them earlier that night. “My dad is on my case for joining up,” he sighs, unable to lie to her again. He is so sick of keeping things from her, his heart is heavy with the weight of it all. 

 

“I kind of figured,” she says. They fall quiet and Jughead wonders when on earth their easy companionship fell apart so irreparably. He knows it, instinctively, because the last two times they’ve sat here things were already falling apart. Right before everything went so wrong—him wanting to run off into the sunset with her, too wrapped up in his own dumbass concerns to see the worry and fear on his girlfriend’s face. And then again, when all of it ended except some of it is still going because he’s still the dumbass that joined a gang, found a family, and lost the most important thing to him in the process. 

 

They’re getting so adept at pushing each other away. It cuts him to his core, thinking about the break in Betty’s voice that night at the Wyrm when he saw his whole world crashing around him. He can hear his own harsh voice telling her to go home and just wants to take it all back. 

 

“I loved my Christmas present, Juggie,” says Betty softly. He looks up from staring into the straw of his chocolate shake and can see her green eyes gazing intently at him, shining with something he really hopes aren’t tears. 

 

“Mine was  _ amazing _ , Betty,” he responds, delight creeping back into his voice. The girl knew how to give a gift, that much was for sure. 

 

A giggle escapes her at the excitement in his voice; she’d known the moment she saw the typewriter in the antique store weeks ago that it would be the perfect present. 

 

Both their hands are laying on the tabletop and Jughead cracks his knuckles to keep himself from reaching out for hers. It’s all he can do to not run his thumb over the soft skin of her hand and tell her how much he misses her. But he knows this time he is the one keeping her away, that it won’t be fair to act on his urges. It needs to be her, she needs to be willing to forgive him for his idiocy.  “I should have called,” he finally says. He’s mostly referring to telling her thank you for the gift but the subtext is there. 

 

“It’s… it’s okay. You’re telling me now.” Betty’s voice is soft, as delicate as it was the day she told him she wished they could be Romeo and Juliet with the happy ending. 

 

Betty drums her fingers lightly against the fornica and then, against her better judgement, places her hand on top of Jughead’s. He starts, looking into her eyes with unbridled hope; her own fingers are trembling as though this simple action could bring the world crashing down around them. As though their world isn’t already in shambles. She chews on her bottom lip and smiles apprehensively back at him. 

 

They finish their milkshakes in silence, but don’t let go of each other’s hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know your thoughts!


	3. part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I couldn't help my self. absolutely nobody is surprised by this.

They start to text again after that night in Pop’s. It’s nothing close to how things used to be—there’s a distinct lack of Betty’s usual emojis, Jughead types out at least three responses to each message before deleting each one to settle for the safest and shortest answer, and neither one of them make the obvious statement of how _weird_ this feels now—but it is certainly a start.

 

Betty sends the first one, letting him know she just finished rereading _Beloved,_ this time the copy he gave her. She doesn’t expect an answer and doesn’t get one until a day later when he sends a photo of his beat-up chemistry textbook with the caption _sounds preferable to reading this._

 

(She doesn’t tell him how she is secretly relieved he’s still showing up to classes, still doing his classwork, because it means admitting she doubted him.)

 

He’ll send more pictures, in a conspicuous effort to let her see his world again and admit that maybe he was wrong and not _every_ aspect needed to be separate from her. So Jughead sends a photo of Hot Dog, panting heavily after chasing a squirrel, or the month’s schedule at the Bijou, or the cover page of an essay for class he wrote on the vintage Underwood. Betty likes to have more control over what she shares, terrified of pushing him too far again, or of saying anything too serious that reveals just how much being apart is hurting her. She tells him that Archie is learning a John Mayer song— types out two eye roll emojis but erases them with a sigh—that someone derailed the substitute English teacher for 20 minutes by asking about the proper use of a semicolon, and other innocuous details of her days.

 

What she really wants to tell him is that she still can’t sleep, still has nightmares about the Black Hood sneaking into her room and strangling her, that Alice has come into her room in the middle of the night three times when she wakes up screaming. That despite Alice’s concern for her daughter’s midnight terrors, Betty cannot stand to be in the same room as her mother for any longer than is absolutely necessary so she goes from school to Vixens practice to the Riverdale Public Library and stays there until closing.

 

Jughead figures out the library part on his own, though, when he’s killing time before a Serpent meeting on Friday and drank too much coffee to continue sitting in the booth at Pop’s; he’s taken to showing up just before the meetings start, so he can slip in unnoticed by FP. His dad is doing his absolute best to keep him away, but Jughead is grasping at straws to hang onto the new family he made for himself—he already did so much damage to the one he’d created before and the idea of returning to his lonely existence leaves a sour taste in his mouth. So he paces through the history section, running his fingers along the spines aimlessly when he finds Betty curled up in an armchair with books and papers sprawled across the table in front of her.

 

Seeing her sends a shockwave through him that softens to a dull pain when he realizes she’s _asleep_ in the chair. It is still early in the evening, but it’s a Friday and he expected her to be out with Veronica or Archie. (He’d be lying if said he didn’t camp out at Pop’s for that exact reason and only left, dejected, when Archie and Veronica came in together and sat in one of the tiny two-person booths.) Instead she’s here alone, her face so sweet and peaceful in sleep, and Jughead misses her so fiercely in that moment that he has to sit down.

 

His close movement jostles her awake and Betty looks at him through hooded eyes. Not quite awake and aware of the exact situation, she smiles at him—unguarded and with what he thinks, hopes might be a trace of the love she used to look at him with. “Hi Juggie,” she murmurs.

 

Surprised, but encouraged, by her use of the nickname, Jughead raises an eyebrow and it brings her crashing back to earth. Now _very_ awake, Betty sits up quickly, blushing and no longer meeting his eye. She silently curses herself and starts to gather up her belongings. For the briefest of moments when she wakes up these days, she forgets everything. In the twilight realm between dream and reality, Betty doesn’t remember that Polly is gone again, that a murderer stalked her, that Jughead broke her heart. Usually she shakes herself out of it but the library setting disoriented her and he was _there_ and her heart took over her brain. Betty is flooded with embarrassment and shame, scrambling to make an escape.

 

“Betty wait, wait,” he rushes out. “It’s okay, stay here. Please.”

 

She slows, biting her lip, and Jughead is mildly terrified to realize she’s crying. “I should get home anyway,” she says quietly.

 

Before giving himself a chance to overthink and stop himself, Jughead reaches out to still her hand with his own. The moment they touch again, he’s not sure he wants to ever let go. Betty draws in a shuddering breath but doesn’t pull away. He wants to ask why she was asleep at the library or why she’s started to cry, but he bites his tongue for fear of her refusing him an answer. He isn’t owed any explanations. He made certain of that. “Can I at least walk you out?”

 

Betty nods a silent yes and tries not to focus on how good it feels when Jughead guides her through the library’s front doors with a hand at the small of her back.

 

***

 

The next time they see each other in person, it’s actually planned. The days following the library brought a series of unanticipated events: someone sets fire to Southside High, Weatherbee announces Monday morning that the two schools will merge, and Betty is filled a sickening combination of dread and excitement.

 

She’s happy to know Jughead will be returning to Riverdale High, the place where everything began for them. But the school hasn’t yet been completely tainted by run-ins with him in their liminal state of broken-up-but-it’s-not-really-sticking. She doesn’t want to ruin the memories. She also doesn’t want to deal with the agony of seeing him every day when they aren’t together. Would he come back to the paper? Would he stretch across the couch in the Blue & Gold office and help her copy edit like nothing had changed? Or would he continue to favor the Serpents over her, leave her to her own devices for her _own good?_

 

Too many unanswered questions and racing thoughts has Betty pressing nails to palms. She texts him a brief _meet me at Pop’s?_ and for the first time since any of this, he responds immediately. _I can be there in ten._

 

Pop pours them both cups of coffee that they don’t touch. There is so much hanging in the heavy silence between them while they each try to look anywhere but directly into each other’s eyes, Jughead afraid he’ll see tears there again and Betty worried she’ll see the same hardness he’d had when he told her to go home. They both know better but can’t escape their fears.

 

Similar to the last time they sat here across from each other, each has a hand resting on the tabletop as a tentative peace offering. Jughead breaks the distance first, brushing his fingers lightly over hers and feeling relief wash over him when Betty smiles in response. The tension in his shoulders melts and he picks up the coffee, taking a sip and lifting his gaze to hers. There’s a shimmer in the green eyes that has nothing to do with unshed tears.

 

Betty feels as though she’s trembling when she opens her mouth to speak and grips his hand to steady herself. She tries to ignore the warmth that spreads through her whole being when he squeezes back, but it blooms so quickly and she feels truly calm for the first time in weeks. “I’m happy that you’re going to be back at Riverdale High,” she says, this time not even trying to stop a smile from breaking through. More words hang in the air— _because I’ve missed you, so we can spend time together, please don’t push me away again_ —but the soft edges of the moment blur out the unspoken worries. Whatever has happened, whatever is going on, they are back in their booth at Pop’s and holding hands and letting themselves live in the moment.

 

He runs his thumb across the delicate skin of her wrist, feeling the flutter of her pulse. “I am too, Betts.”

 

***

 

The first day the Southside High students come to Riverdale High is tense. Betty and Veronica rally a group of the more accepting RH students to help ease the transition, but Reggie and Cheryl and the rest of their followings rally an even bigger crew to cause chaos. Betty is crestfallen when she sees Jughead enter the double-doors flanked by his fellow Serpents and wearing the leather jacket that was the impetus for so many of the things that went wrong between them.

 

But he walks with such a newfound confidence through the halls where he was once mocked and ridiculed, the emblem at his back and tattoo on his arm giving him reason to stand a little taller and glare a little harder. Betty wants to be worried that this means he’ll slip away from her again but, even as he stands with his arms crossed and gang brothers at his side to stare down the Northsiders, he softens his gaze to smile at her across the hallway. The seed of hope in her chest continues to bloom.

 

Interactions between Serpents and Bulldogs are dangerous at best, explosive at worst.

 

Sweet Pea and Reggie come to blows in the middle of lunch, where Jughead sat with his fellow Serpents and Betty had been too sick to her stomach with anxiety over that exact thing happening that she didn’t even enter the cafeteria.

 

(Jughead wasn’t exactly planning to reclaim his old lunch table position but he did spend longer than was necessary scanning the room for any sign of a blonde ponytail. He only took a seat between Fangs and Toni when he was certain she wasn’t there.)

 

Betty heard the shouts echoing through the hallway and poked her head out of the Blue & Gold office just in time to see a mass of leather-clad bodies throwing themselves at the wall of letterman jackets. She sucks in a breath when she sees Reggie launch himself at Jughead; Jughead, who is still so attuned to every movement Betty Cooper makes, whips around at the sound of her gasp only to be clocked squarely in the jaw. The force of the punch sends him skidding across the hallway, almost directly colliding with Betty in the doorway of the newspaper office.

 

“Jug!” she cries out, catching him by the elbow and raising a gentle hand to cup his face. “Are you okay?”

 

He presses his cheek into her palm for the briefest of seconds before squaring his shoulders and smirking. “Got it covered, Betts. Just stay in here and try to not get run over by any more flying bodies, alright?” She’s too dumbfounded to react and is easily guided back through the door by Jughead before he leaps back into the fray and slugs an enormous senior football player, currently whaling on Sweet Pea, directly in the stomach.

 

The fight is quickly mitigated by various adults arriving on scene and Betty watches Jug lift his hands off the senior in casual surrender, using the cuff of his Serpent jacket to wipe away a trickle of blood from his split lip. Something deep in her stomach that she can’t quite name flutters and she catches his eye across the hall before slinking back into the office. His eyes are alight with mischief but the smile he sends her way makes her feel safe and warm.

 

***

 

That first week passes in much of the same fashion: there are lines in the sand and both sides continue to bait each other, but the intensity fades a small degree by the time the week draws to a close. Betty spends her lunches in the Blue & Gold, Veronica and Kevin joining her to gossip with each other about which Southside students were the most attractive while Betty finishes layout.

 

Archie pops in when the football team starts scheming to get the Serpents thrown out, bringing his fries for Kevin and kissing Veronica on the cheek. Betty smiles as she watches her friends joke with each other and live out some aspects of the carefree lives they’re supposed to have. Veronica and Archie are planning an elaborate date night, Kevin hanging on every detail, when there’s a soft rap on the door. Jughead’s tentative smile is visible through the pane of glass and Betty beckons him in. The other three look up briefly to say hello, as if it were any other day, and carry on.

 

Jughead looks sheepish. “I didn’t realize you had company,” he mutters to Betty. It’s taken him several days to work up the nerve to come see her at the Blue & Gold, a room that held many sacred memories for them. There’s a lot he wants to say to her, say in this room because the words will hold more gravity here. But it’s nothing he is willing to say in mixed company.

 

She gives him a small half-smile with a shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve been avoiding the caf all week and they finally realized I had the right idea.”

 

He scratches at his neck before running his tongue over his healing split lip. “You usually do.” Mildly dejected but unwilling to pass up the opportunity to spend time with Betty again, Jughead pulls a book out of his bag and perches in a seat with his legs over the desk, looking up over the cover every so often to watch Betty pour over the week’s articles. Her bottom lip is pulled between her teeth in concentration and he wants nothing more than to rescue and sooth it with his tongue.

 

Just before the bell rings, Betty catches him staring and blushes furiously.

 

Relishing in the satisfaction of teasing her, Jughead bites his own lip and raises his eyebrows. She ducks her head in embarrassment, feeling a repeat of the butterflies in her stomach from days before. As he’s getting up to leave the room, slinging his backpack over one shoulder, Jughead pulls his beanie further down over his ears—somewhat nervously—and leans over to press a kiss to Betty’s already-flaming cheek. He’s out the door before she can react and the ghost of his lips on her skin keeps her warm until the final bell.

 

***

 

Betty rides the high of their increasingly-frequent interactions all the way through Vixens practice, even despite Cheryl’s vindictive mood—the presence of the Southside students had put her (and the majority of the football team) on the warpath.

 

The Southsiders apparently took the warpath to heart, though, as both the football team and Vixens discovered when they return to the locker rooms after practice. Bright green, serpentine ‘S’s were spray painted across locker doors and all belongings had disappeared. Even Veronica, who had decidedly been in favor of civility, flies off the handle at this development.

 

“You can’t just _steal_ people’s things,” Veronica hisses, slamming her empty locker door in anger and—quite literally—clutching at her pearls.

 

Betty murmurs her agreement, spinning the dial on her combination lock. Only unguarded items were stolen, so her jacket and winter boots were gone, but after whispers of hazing had gone around when she first joined the Vixens, Betty put a lock on her locker so as to avoid something _exactly like this_ happening. She had worried about Cheryl’s minions stealing her bra or spraying shaving cream though, not her ex’s friends stealing everybody’s clothes and backpacks.

 

She wants to call Jughead, beg him to promise that he didn’t know this was happening—wants to believe that he might have _warned her_ at least if he had. Because now she’s mad, worried that maybe she misinterpreted the rekindling of their… whatever it was. To top it off, it’s cold outside, with snow in the forecast, and Betty is not about to walk to the library without her coat. She changes out of her practice shorts and back into her jeans, leaving on the yellow baseball tee before surveying the locker room for anything that could have been left behind in the raid. There’s a musty fleece in the lost and found bin but Betty isn’t feeling quite that desperate.

 

Veronica already left to find Archie so she returns to the Blue & Gold office, not looking forward to the phone call she’s about to make to her mother—she can only imagine the fit Alice will throw when Betty tells her the reason why she needs a ride home.

 

Frustrated, Betty slams the door to the quiet office behind her. The reverberating crash is satisfying and some of her anger ebbs away.

 

“Are you okay, Betty?” The question comes from across the room, where Jughead is sprawled out on the couch. He sits up in concern, eyes probing, and Betty’s heart pangs at the familiarity of this scene: Jughead waiting for her here to investigate after practice, walking her home in the dark while holding her hand. The memory of it burns at the back of her throat before she realizes her eyes are full of tears again.

 

“Jug, why are you here?” The crack in her voice is apparent and Betty quickly brushes away the tears that spill over with the back of her hand.

 

He wants to make a joke, lighten the mood with _someone on the Southside never learned to not play with matches, remember?_ but it dies on his tongue. Powerless against the sight of her so upset, Jughead fights the urge to rush over and wrap her in his arms, kiss the tears off her cheeks, and whisper that he’ll always love her.

 

Instead, he stays put and answers, “Because I miss you.”

 

A half-choked sob escapes her and this time Jughead gives into the impulse to hug her. She feels so small under him and the smell of her shampoo, something floral and vanilla, does something to his insides. He inhales deeply, the force of his want for her making him shake, and when Betty looks up at him—green eyes wide and flicking momentarily down to his lips—the need takes over. Jughead kisses her so fiercely that he backs her into the closed door and swallows the muffled squeak of surprise she emits.

 

He kisses her with the hope he can put the intense pain he felt during their weeks apart into actions instead of words. In reciprocation, Betty cups his face in her hands and brings him as close at they can get without actually melding into one being. His hand is tight on her hip bone, thumb stroking lightly at the skin just above the waist of her jeans—the sharp jut of the bone tells him he’s right in thinking she looks thin, but her hands are twisting into his hair and she nips at his upper lip and it’s too goddamned distracting.

 

Betty is almost light-headed at the solid feeling of Jughead’s very solid body pressing her into the door and when he licks his tongue into her mouth before trailing hot kisses across her jaw, she groans in pleasure. The sound comes from so deep inside her that it sounds almost foreign and all she wants is for Jughead to do more of anything that will light her insides on fire with this dizzying feeling. When he sucks lightly at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, Betty lets her hands wander down from his hair and over his shoulders that feel broader than they used to and it’s not just the extra weight of leather. She pushes half-heartedly at the offending item, trying to remove it and pull him closer to her at the same time; there’s a whine when his hands leave her hips to slide his arms through the sleeves and she realizes it’s from her. He returns to her in a rush, kissing back up the column of her throat to meet her lips, wrapping his arms around her so tightly that her back bows slightly against the door.

 

They’ve kissed like this before, but it’s been so long, and they have missed each other so intensely that everything feels brand new again. Betty is whimpering quietly into his mouth and, almost of their own volition, her hips move forward to seek a friction she didn’t know she wants. Jughead feels like his body is on fire and he presses his hips against her even harder.

 

The force of it slides Betty into the metal doorknob and she breaks away with a sharp gasp of pain. Jughead leans back immediately, concerned he pushed her too far and did something wrong; her hair is wild and her face is flushed, but she’s smiling. “Door knob,” she explains, laughing quietly.

 

Jughead breathes a sigh of relief and peppers light kisses across her face. “Sorry,” he mutters. He means the door knob, but lets the sincerity in his tone speak to everything they’ve put each other through. She cups his face in her hands and kisses him back briefly, but soundly—a silent _thank you_ and _I’m sorry too._

 

They break apart to move away from the doorway and, still craving the closeness neither of them wants to give up again, relocate to the couch Jughead had been reading on. Betty lists into his side, resting her head on his shoulder while he toys with the ends of her now-messy ponytail.

 

“What was wrong when you came in?” Jughead wants to ask what _that_ meant for them, whether she is willing to forgive him entirely, but figures the best way to earn her trust back is to just _be there_ for her again. Ask about her day, soothe her when she’s upset, love her as much as she will let him for now.

 

“Oh,” she says quietly. “Um, the Ser— they— someone broke into the locker rooms during practice and stole everyone’s things. I locked up my bag, but my jacket is gone.”

 

Jughead swears under his breath. That certainly explains some of the hushed conversations he had walked away from during lunch.

 

“I’ll get your coat back,” he promises. He’ll share some choice words with the jackasses who decided that was a good idea. “In the meantime,” Jughead stands up and unties the flannel that’s around his waist. He lays it over Betty’s shoulders before sitting back down and pulling her into him again.

 

The gesture, so simple and caring, fills Betty’s eyes with tears again. She snuggles into the worn material contentedly; it smells lightly of his pine soap and coffee, makes her feel safe like she hasn’t for weeks. In this moment, she feels confident in her hope that they’ll work their way back to what once was.

 

“I missed you too,” Betty whispers. Jughead drops a kiss onto the crown of her head, not hiding the smile that stretches his split lip. They stay that way until a janitor kicks them out to clean and they leave the building. She wears his flannel and holds his hand tightly for the whole walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a lot of feelings about Betty & Jug's forthcoming reunion, so I just needed to get my personal headcanon down before canon swoops in to change it all. I hope you've enjoyed! 
> 
> as always, comments are my lifeblood.  
> you can find me on tumblr under the same name.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I love to hear what you think!  
> you can find me on tumblr under the same name.


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